This Junket. This Vomit. This England. I just got back from England around ten hours ago. The trip started out okay, but ended up being amazingly fun. Going in was a bit rough since I wasn�t able to sleep for consecutive nights the previous week; this combined with international travel really wore me down. So even though I had an okay time in London and Sheffield, I had a pretty nasty cold that put a damper on things. Still, it was cool hanging with the boys and the British PR babe. Newcastle was an entirely different story. This town totally rocks. The kids are out all hours of the evening, they�re scantily dressed (even though it�s frickin� freezing out), and the girls are pretty friendly. Naturally, I fell for two waitresses. First was Emma, a cute Chinese girl with a British accent (how hot is that?). She�s studying drama in Newcastle and we talked for a bit. Apparently she�s married to one of the guys working at the restaurant�and the boys knew this and decided not to tell me�dicks. Next up was Jennifer, who�s from Atlanta, Georgia. She�s an English major studying abroad for a year. She was totally cute and pretty interesting, but I didn�t ask her to hang with us later, which ended up being a good thing. Our first night in Newcastle we went to this bizarre club where the �80s never ended. It was crazy watching young men dancing with each other while singing Livin� on a Prayer. I�ve been to places in the Castro that were straighter than this. Let�s see, there was an extensive Wham medley, some Bryan Adams, and Cyndi Lauper. This one toothless fellow asked me to speak Chinese to him. It made me realize how comfortable I�ve been in places like San Francisco and New York. On one hand it made me appreciate the diversity and tolerance in these cities. On the other, it made me feel like I was neglecting the ethnic aspects of my identity since it�s a non-issue at home. It made me wonder what moving to Minnesota would be like. Thankfully, the cowgirl-dressed tavern wenches were really hot and compensated for how flaming this place was. Valentine�s Day started out poorly. Ironically, I was wearing the same outfit the day the girl broke my heart. At dinner I was a little sad�the continuous flow of merlot wasn�t helping either. After dinner we moved to the bar across the street and things changed dramatically. They had absinthe at this bar, which is a hallucinogenic alcohol that�s illegal in the US. I coerced the Kid--a 19-year old journalist--to imbibe some�and he ended up vomiting on Bill Linn. It was pretty awesome. It was all over his jacket, head, and hair. I ran from the scene laughing--both to disassociate myself from the Kid and to find a corner I could laugh in. It was seriously one of the funniest things I�ve ever seen. After the bar we went to a pretty neat club. I�ve been trying to encourage the Kid to talk to women more, so I found an attractive blonde girl for him to try his game on. He wasn�t going for it at first, so I went up to her myself and said, �Hi, my friend would like to buy you a drink. Would that be okay?� So they ended up talking, and like a good wingman I stayed to talk with her friend. The blonde girl ended up being a model that owns houses in London and Newcastle. Unfortunately for the Kid, blondie was engaged, but I ended spending some time with the other girl. She�s a student at the University of�uh�Newcastle�and is one of their top tennis players. When the club closed, we had lovely parting gifts for each other. Unfortunately, I don't remember what her name was...but I should have pictures of her on Monday. So we get back to the hotel shortly after 2:00AM and we�re still looking to hang out. After losing some of the group to two skanks, it was five of us (four journos and a flak) from America and eight of the UK guys. The guy manning the front desk didn�t want us to make noise, so he reopened the hotel bar for us. That was the single coolest thing a hotel has ever done for me. It was a pretty good time. The Brits kept telling us how girly American-football players are for wearing pads and we told them how soccer players are lame for running around like dickheads for hours without scoring. Apparently Brits think that American Ninja is the pinnacle of American moviemaking. One of the nastier guys in our group did his part as an international educator by teaching the Brits about hot Karl, tea-bagging, and dirty Sanchez. As the night went on it got even more juvenile. The Brits head of marketing fell asleep, so we drew on him, took pictures with him, and stacked pillows on him. Later, I drew a sign that read �I like cock.� We ended up sneaking the sign around and snapping photos of the unsuspecting victims. At 5:00AM, this is all fucking funny. Sixy beers and three packs of cigarettes later, we finally left the bar around 6:00AM, but ran into some Scottish guy and an English girl in the hallway. He claimed to have been snorting crushed E and gave us several reasons to believe him. He ended up performing a song for us with his pants around his ankles. After some quick packing and breakfast, we left for the airport. Newcastle totally rules and I need to go back there before I turn 30. Oh, Hoegaarden (which we later dubbed Ho-Wagon) and Night Nurse are the two finest beverages in Europe.